Robert McKinley, Senior Analyst/Editor
Robert McKinley is an analyst of the payments industry on a daily basis for 32 years covering payment cards and payment systems from both the business side and the consumer side. McKinley is the retired founder and chief executive of RAM Research, CardWeb and CardTrak. In his prior position, McKinley has participated in more than 10,000 documented news media interviews, testified as an expert witness in two separate $billion+ U.S. anti-trust trials, testified before the U.S. Congress, assisted the GAO with paymentsIMG_2006 (1).jpeg reports, chaired numerous business conferences and provided C-Suite opinion to a multitude of Fortune 500 companies. In retirement, he has continued developing and funding digital media assets as well as contributing payments related analysis/content to a broad list of online publishers, including CardFlash, CardTrak and CardData. McKinley is also a national certified mentor with the non-profit SCORE organization with a focus on assisting Fintech startups. www.robert-mckinley.com

More major purchase shoppers report starting and ending their shopping journey online this year and spending less time (63 days on average vs. 68 days in 2015) on the path to purchase than in the past. Empowered with research, reviews and real-time discount information, shoppers making purchases of $500 or more are more decisive and…

Corcentric, a provider of cloud-based financial process automation solutions, has launched its newest product, an e-payments solution to help its customers further automate and digitize their payments processes. This integrated, end-to-end solution automates back-end accounts payable and payment transactions, processes all of a company’s disbursements, dramatically reduces accounts payable and payment costs and efficiently manages…

New research reveals digital channels are opening up unanticipated points of weakness for banks. The EMV effect EMV, also known as the “chip card,” looks to prevent point-of-sale and physical card threats. When the UK and European countries introduced EMV more than 10 years ago, there was a different digital landscape. Immediate access to credit.…

The global value of contactless POS (point of sale) terminal transactions, conducted in-store via cards, mobile and wearables, will approach $500 billion annually by 2017; this is up from an estimated $321 billion this year. However, the low value nature of contactless payments means that it will only represent just 5% of the total value…

[ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type=”show” ihc_mb_who=”0″ ihc_mb_template=”1″] Gross dollar volume (GDV) for Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover cards (credit + debit) in the U.S. climbed 6.8% year-on-year (YOY) in 2Q/16 reaching a record $1482 billion. Visa led the way in the second quarter posting a 9.0% YOY gain for U.S. GDV. Visa reported second quarter GDV…

An estimated 44% of U.S. card-accepting merchants have EMV terminals. Less than a month away from the anniversary of the EMV liability shift, 29% of U.S. merchants are actually able to accept chip-based transactions. The Strawhecker Group (TSG) survey of payment processors and other payment providers also found approximately one-third of merchants have activated EMV…

In Other News: MYC (webinar); CLEARENT (exec); BLUEFIN (P2PE); and YAPSTONE (exec). MYC – Master Your Card (MYC) sponsored by Mastercard, announced a new webinar series on card acceptance, developed in partnership with the Association of Women’s Business Centers (AWBC). The webinars are based on input and feedback from small business owners on how to…

DCB Bank, a new-generation private sector bank in India, has launched of mVisa. The mobile based payment solution will make payments at retail outlets much easier: Customers of any mVisa issuing bank can make digital payments at mVisa enabled retail outlets simply by scanning a unique QR code on their smartphones. To implement mVisa, the…

eBay’s GittiGidiyor has selected Gravity R&D as its personalization platform provider. During an intensive test against eBay Turkey’s in-house solution and global competitors, Gravity demonstrated the best performance in all categories. Acquired by eBay in 2011, GittiGidiyor has evolved into one of the leading players in the rapidly growing, Turkish e-commerce market. In 2015, GittiGidiyor…

Consumers credit card behavior improved since exiting the recession as evidenced by the growth of credit card limits in particular among the subprime credit card market. Yet, even with the solid improvements, the year-over-year figures indicate a slight increase in delinquency rates. Experian found the first six months of 2016 has shown that the total…

One of Thailand’s most reputable businesses just made a substantial play for Southeast Asia’s online credit card and card insurance comparison market – which until now was dominated by foreign players. The 138-year-old multi-billion dollar Thai conglomerate, B.Grimm, began quietly piloting their new financial comparison platform, Masii, to users in Bangkok last month. The site…

Fiserv’s Payment Fraud Manager now offers a new, advanced predictive scoring model specific to Automated Clearing House (ACH) transactions. Payment Fraud Manager detected more than 90% of fraud while reviewing only two percent of the transactions, according to Fiserv model validation tests. Built to help financial institutions detect and stop fraudulent electronic payments in real…